Lossiemouth, Lossiemouth Harbour

NJ27SW 18.00 centred 2368 7061

NJ27SW 18.01 NJ 23908 70765 to NJ c. 23848 70753 West (New) Pier

NJ27SW 18.02 NJ 23951 70790 to NJ c. 2381 7053 Old (East) Pier and Breakwater

NJ27SW 18.03 NJ c. 2373 7065 to NJ c. 2383 7075 Quay

For (successor) Lossiemouth, Branderburgh Harbour (NJ 237 712), see NJ27SW 17.

For (possibly-associated) footbridge to SE, see NJ27SW 127.

(Location cited as NJ 237 705). Lossiemouth harbour, commenced 1703. A simple quay, now wood-piled, along the W bank of the river Lossie. Disused.

J R Hume 1977

The mouth of the River Lossie has a long history as a port, particularly in its relationship with the Royal Burgh of Elgin. The port is mentioned as early as 1383 in a 'protestatio' then lodged by the Bishop of Moray against a 'petitio' by the Earl of Moray which he held to have infringed his rights. This document, though most interesting throughout, is too long to reproduce here, but its most immediately relevant points may be resumed as follows:

1. The port of 'Losey' and the fishing-grounds concerned in this case were openly and commonly known to fall within the limits of the episcopal estates.

2. Former bishops had habitually kept sea-fishermen living with their wives and families in the village of Spynie, who took their boats down to, and returned from, the sea through the port - even sinking some small craft in the process - and had done so neither by force nor secretly nor by anyone's leave, but as the the port's regular overlord.

It thus seems allowable to infer that a port which was of interest to the Earl of Moray and the Elgin burgesses, and was not merely a fishing station, existed in the estuary in 1383 and had probably done so for a considerable time. Its precise position cannot be estimated with confidence, as the sandy waterway is certain to have shifted more or less in the course of the centuries, but the bishop's language shows that it was somewhere well downstream of his fishing station at Spynie, and in the river or estuary itself, rather than in the loch. Harbour works are unlikely to have amounted to more than the maintenance of a cleared stretch of landing-beach, such as was required at Kirkcudbright in the 17th century. The port and fishery are mentioned again in 1551.

A harbour in the proper sense seems to have come into being, as the result of a longish and somewhat obscure process, at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1685 the burgh council of Elgin called in a German engineer recorded as Peter Bruce, and identifiable as the Peter Brauss who, in 1676, carried out Sir William Bruce's plans for supplying Edinburgh with water from Comiston Springs, and on his advice decided that a harbour was necessary and could be made at a place called Elginehead, already the burgh's property and distant from it less than three miles. It has been suggested that one object of this move may have been to cut out the port of Findhorn and so pre-empt the overseas trade of Forres, to which Findhorn belonged. An imposition was accordingly applied for to meet the cost. Elginehead has not survived as a place-name, but the site was probably the same as that of the 'Old Harbour' that is marked on the OS maps. In the negotiations with the Privy Council, the projected work was described as 'an grate work and wast expenses to build and maintain the same'. Approval was obtained in January 1686, and it was hoped that the harbour would be ready by August of the same year, but this was not the end of the story, as appears from other records. Thus we find the burgh making application to Parliament for an imposition to to finance the building and repair of its harbour as a result of which a draft Act for the completion of the work was read and laid on the table in 1703. At the same time the matter was under discussion with the Convention of Royal Burghs which, in 1700, authorised a grant of 200 marks for the building of a pier in the mouth of the Lossie. Resuming the subject in 1702, the burgh reported that a convenient site had been found (whether or not the Elginehead of 1685) and in view of the general utility of the proposed work the Convention recommended voluntary contributions. In 1728 a further petition was lodged on account of increased expenses and in 1729 a visiting committee of inspection recommended an additional grant of ?20.

Another account provided for the origin of the Old Harbour in another way. This states that Elgin, in 1698, feued ground from Kinneddar for the harbour, that an awkward snad-bar existed, and that an attempt was made in 1780 to increase the scour of the current by building another pier on the opposite bank. Whichever of these accounts is preferred, and however the apparent conflict in their dating is composed, the place was reported by Defoe's continuator as having been ruinous and choked with sand before 1721.

These difficulties apart, it seems probable enough that the works constructed at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries were at least the progenitor, if not the physical core, of the Old Harbour as known in more recent times. The OS maps show this latter as a quay with a short pier projecting from its SW end, flanking the left bank of the river for some 600 ft (182m) and finishing about 300 yds (274m) downstream from the N end of Seatown. More or less opposite its NE end, and some way back from the river's right bank, among the tidal sands, there is marked 'Old Pier', shown as 500 ft (152m) and disposed in a manner which would agree perfectly with Groome's suggestion of a work designed to concentrate the current and keep the channel clear. It is thus possible that the two pieces of construction in this part of the estuary may differ in date by as much as some 80 or 90 years. At the end of the 18th century, Lossiemouth, as Elgin's seaport, was carrying on the usual local trade and could still be called a 'fishing town' though only one sloop and two fishing-boats were actually owned there at the time.

The last phase of development before 1847 is described in The Parliamentary Report. The Old Harbour suffered dilapidation and, the channel between the piers being sanded up, Elgin obtained powers in 1834 to build a new harbour on a fresh site. This was at Stotfield, north of the earlier works, where a 'fishing town' was noted in 1792 and a 'old Stotfield harbour' in 1842.

A Graham 1979

Location cited as NJ 238 712. Air photographs: AAS/97/12/G27/6 and AAS/97/12/CT.

NMRS, MS/712/29.

Old Harbour [NAT] (centred NJ 2379 7070)

OS (GIS) MasterMap, March 2011.